Rich Franklin and Wanderlei Silva made good on their promise of a war in Cologne, Germany.

For three rounds Franklin/Silva went exactly as predicted: a slobber-knocker where the Axe-Murderer brought the wild flurries and Ace brought the technical strikes.

Silva's style may have helped endear the sport of mixed martial arts to Germans David Hasselhoff-style, but it didn't earn him enough points to get past the former middleweight champ.

This win was a long time coming for Franklin, who has lived in limbo since his last loss to Anderson Silva. Now Ace's reward looks to be coming in the near future as UFC president Dana White announced in the press conference after the fight that he's optimistic about Franklin's future at light heavyweight.

His next opponent is not clear, nor how many more fights he has to win to get a title-shot, but he's closer than expected. With the way the division is shaping up, expect Franklin's next opponent to be Luiz Cane and a winner there would be worthy of a title-shot.

As for Wanderlei, he looked like the man we all knew in Pride. There's been talk of retirement, but I don't fear for his health the way I did for Chuck. His chin seems tough enough and he still brings the same intensity to each fight. I don't think a win was entirely necessary to keep him in the Anderson Silva picture, but a strong performance was and he showed that Saturday. Don't be surprised by Silva/Silva in the near future.

Another fight that delivered was Mike Swick and Ben Saunders. Swick continued his string of impressive wins by banging with the taller Saunders and earning a second-round TKO. Quick has to be in the top ten picture at welterweight, while a tough loss may have been the exact thing a talented, but young, Saunders needed.

Speaking of young and talented, Cain Velasquez was impressive with his win over Cheick Kongo. Kongo may not have been a title contender, but he was close to top ten status and Cain earned a unanimous decision over the Frenchman. He showed some holes in the stand-up, but his wrestling was more than enough to control a shaky grappler in Kongo. With so many one-dimensional fighters at heavyweight, the ability to control where the fight goes is more important in this division than any other, and Cain has that in spades.

Some disappointing performances came from the lightweights between Spencer Fisher and Caol Uno, where Fisher edged out Uno in points. It was a good fight, but it didn't bring the excitement that I'm used to with Fisher fights.

The most disappointing fight in Cologne, however, came from Mirko Filipovic. Filipovic landed a clear eye-poke, forcing opponent Mustafa Al-Turk to turtle up and from there Filipovic finished him. The fight should have been halted, but unfortunately referee Dan Miragliotta missed the shot.

Refs can't see everything so at times it's up to the guy who lands the poke to stop the action when their finger lands in something slimy on their opponent's face. We've seen several fighters who knew when they landed the illegal blow, like Dan Henderson against Rich Franklin, stop the action on their own to let their opponent recover. It's called sportsmanship and Cro Cop showed none of it against Al-Turk.

Cro Cop added insult to injury by being one and done with the UFC as he signed a secretive three-fight deal with Japanese promotion Dream. It's not a loss to the UFC, where I doubt Filipovic could add much to the division, but it is a loss to the Croatian's fans. Saturday was not a good day for Cro Cop inside or outside the octagon as he ignored the golden rule on two fronts.

The call of "Timber" would have been appropriate as Sylvia did his best impression of WWE's Ric Flair after a Mercer overhand right. What does this say about Sylvia if he can't last ten seconds with a guy that Kimbo Slice beat? Thanks for setting MMA back further than your career, Timmy. Maybe Sylvia should hire Jens Pulver to be his new manager.

Gavin Raath is the It's Just Sports UFC/MMA/combat-related sports writer. He will check in periodically to talk about people who are good at kicking other people in the brains.